HP wearable effort turns serious as new Titan smartwatches go on sale

Is the consumer wearables market just a sideline for HP, as the company has claimed? As new smartwatches -- like Titan's Juxt -- keep rolling out, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Two new Titan Juxt smartwatches now on sale are built on HP technology. The US$250 Juxt Stainless and $285 Juxt Titanium look like analog smartwatches, but have black-and-white OLED screens that serve up digital features.

The watches can show calendar alerts or text, call and social media notifications. The devices can also track steps and tell you when fitness goals are reached.

Titan claims the watches have a battery life of five days. The digital features on the smartwatches are reliant on smartphones. The watches work with devices like the iPhone with iOS 8 and 9 and Android smartphones with version 4.4 and above.

The smartwatch market is still evolving and audiences have expressed preferences for different designs. Devices like Apple Watch and Samsung's Gear can do more than the Titan smartwatches and have color screens. But smartwatches like the Titan Juxts and Tag Heuer Connected retain an old-school look while adding basic smartwatch features.

HP is not interested in consumer wearables but would help other companies out in developing their products, a company official said in an earlier interview with the IDG News Service. A small group of technologists in the CTO's office is also developing new wearable ideas, but the company's effort is widening.

An increasing list of smartwatches from Movado, Isaac Mizrahi, Michael Bastian and Titan now carry the "Engineered by HP" tag. HP is providing the software, and in some cases, hardware designs for these watches.

The enterprise market is a bigger focus for HP, and the company has expressed a desire to make wearables that could be used by businesses. An example provided by an HP executive included a firefighter wearing a suit full of sensors feeding environmental and other relevant data to assist in rescue operations. However, those devices could be far off.

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